


The Power of a Touch

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant until the final episode, Haven Forever, I made myself cry again, Reference to canon-compliant death, finale fix-it, spoilers for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:57:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: A fix-it fic for the series finale. Follows canon until mid-way through the final episode and then veers wildly off to end up in a very different place.Canon-compliant until mid way through the final episode, Forever.





	

In the Old Armoury, Croatoan stands in front of Audrey and Nathan, shaken by their unshakeable determination to be together. Everything was so clear to him, but Nathan’s refusal to leave town (and to stay gone) and his willingness to risk his life - give his life - for Audrey time and time again have shaken that certainty. 

And then there are the things Duke Crocker has done. His determination to help Audrey and this town against all the odds, in the face of the apparent inevitability of his family curse and the clarity of purpose Croatoan himself had offered. Being faced with these things has left Croatoan’s certainty crumbling around him.

He sees that there is more to this place and the relationships these people have with it - and with each other - than he had realised. He sees that there is more to his daughter than he'd realised. And he comes to the understanding that he cannot possibly hope to break the bonds they have. Not now at least, and maybe not ever.

And so, he stops fighting.

“You're right,” he says. “I would not die for you like Nathan. I would not sacrifice for you like Duke. But I will leave Haven for you. I will power your barn.”

Audrey looks at him for a long moment, weighing up the intent behind his words, before finally deciding that he is serious. “Thank you,” she says, with a nod of acknowledgement.

-

When Audrey asks Vince to try again, the man that has become the controller of the Barn hesitates, looking warily at Croatoan, “The Barn is designed to be powered by someone doing it for the right reasons. It doesn't work to force someone into it. Why do you chose to do this?”

“For my daughter. I do love her, and it seems that this is the only way she will see that. She has found a home, but there is no place for me here. If I can't give her what I want, maybe I can give her what she wants.”

Vince studies Croatoan for a long moment, but eventually he nods. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

“I'm not sure what else there is to say,” Croatoan begins, glancing at Audrey and turning back to Croatoan. Audrey cuts him off, reaching a hand to touch his arm and turn him back towards her as if to emphasise her point. Croatoan looks down at her hand resting on his arm, surprised.

“I am,” she says. “Bring Duke back. You fixed Nathan just now, you brought Lizzie back from years in the ground. So fix Duke before you go. He didn't deserve to die like that.”

Croatoan hears the catch in her voice and sees the look on Nathan's face and thinks he has some idea of how Duke died. He could hardly fail to be touched by the things these men have done in the service of what they thought was right for this town and his daughter. To not only risk your life, to not simply die, but to take the life of a friend - more than anything else, that really makes him think. 

“I … sure. Yes, I think I can do that, just let me think a minute.”

But even as he says it, he realises he has the perfect thing. He can use one of the recent troubles Duke collected for him to adjust one of Mara’s originals. He glances outside at the sun, low in the sky, but not too low; should be just enough time.

As he explains his plan to Audrey and Nathan, he doesn't mention the many other possible options. He doesn't tell them all the reasons why he likes this plan. He just tells Audrey that he loves her and that this is the best way to fix things.

She believes him and so Nathan does too; stands there trusting, while Croatoan pulls the existing Trouble out of him, reeling a little at the return of sensation. Watching as Croatoan reaches above them for a fresh ball of aether from where they still hang in the air and rolling his sleeve up for Croatoan’s touch.

There is no way to test it; they just have to go. As his last act before he goes into the Barn with Vince, Croatoan uses the Trouble he last used on Dwight to send Audrey and Nathan across town in an instant. One minute they're in the Old Armoury, the next they're outside the morgue.

-

Nathan hesitates, thrown by the instant transition, overwhelmed by the myriad and unfamiliar sensations of the world on his skin, and finding himself suddenly afraid. But Audrey runs inside and he soon follows with a quick glance at the sky; they don't have much time.

It takes them a minute to find him, his well wrapped body carefully stowed towards the back of the room. As they pull at the sheet that covers him - Nathan tries hard not to think of the word ‘shroud’ - Audrey mutters under her breath, “If this doesn't work, I will kill him. I will find a way back into the barn and I will kill him for this.”

Nathan doesn't say anything, just pulls at the sheet, clothing coming with it until Duke’s head is free and his shirt half open. Audrey keeps pulling at the sheets to free his arms, as Nathan puts a hand on Duke's chest, just as Audrey had done when she'd re-Troubled him to save Gloria’s grandson.

As he'd pulled hurriedly at fabric he'd felt it's subtle scratching against his fingers, but now as he stands still in the cool of the room, he feels only the softness of Duke's skin - too cold and too still. A body without breath or movement, without heartbeat or blink, without withering look or snarky comeback; perfectly lifeless, perfectly dead.

Nathan may have almost forgotten what a lot of things feel like, but the only thing he has felt in years is skin. He knows what a live body feels like and it is not this. The temperature is wrong, the utter lack of motion is two kinds of wrong; no heartbeat vibrates through the skin and no breath makes it move.

He wishes so desperately in that moment that he could take it all back, change the last time his hands had found Duke. Any one of a hundred little things they could have done differently to avoid that fate; he would change them all if he could. He wishes too that he could take back the tattoo on his arm, and every jibe, every suspicious look, every thinly veiled insult he'd ever made. Duke had deserved none of them.

What Nathan holds on to in that moment as his hand presses down on Duke's lifeless chest, is the last words he'd said to him; the bravest man he had ever known. And now he holds on to the possibility he might be able to say those things to him again. To make sure he understands. And this time to keep him safe.

-

Audrey finishes pulling the sheet from around Duke's arms and legs so he would be free to move, and she stands opposite Nathan to rest her hand on top of his.

There is no way to know whether it is because of her touch, or just a coincidence of timing, but at that moment Nathan feels something change. Some energy moves through his hand, between his and Duke's skin and into that lifeless chest. And a moment later, he feels it as something changes inside; as something moves. He feels it as movement returns to that too-still heart.

First one, hesitant beat, so soft he could almost believe he imagined it. Then another, and another, his heart slowly finding strength and falling back into a rhythm it hadn’t quite yet forgotten. Nathan, stunned, presses the tips of his fingers into the skin of Duke's chest.

He is about to say something to Audrey, unsure if she would have felt it through his hand, when he feels another kind of movement along with it; Duke's ribs slowly expanding as he takes a breath in; smooth and unhurried and deep. Audrey feels that and she sees it too and they both watch as Duke finally opens his eyes to them again.

Unwilling to pull his hand away too soon in case it somehow breaks the spell, Nathan stands there unmoving and feels it as Duke's skin grows warm under his palm. He stands still as Duke blinks in confusion at his surroundings for a moment or two before speaking; one word, half whispered, spoken carefully the way only someone who'd never expected to speak again could, “Nathan …”

Nathan is frozen in stunned inaction for a moment before he speaks, “Everything’s going to be OK.”

  
Duke coughs as he starts to move and Nathan finally drags his hand away from Duke’s chest to help him up. Wanting to ask how he is, but finding himself unable to ask a recently dead man if he’s OK, Nathan pulls him into a hug instead, arms wrapped tight to pull them close. Duke hugs back just as hard and they speak to each in low tones, whispering into each others necks. From the other side of the slab he'd been lying on, Audrey can just hear their voices merging together, heartfelt apologies (“I am so … so sorry,”) twined through with expressions of wonder and amazement (“You brought me back...”).

Nathan pulls out of of the hug a little as Duke says it again (“You brought me back,”) and realises it's the same sentiment he heard from Audrey when he found her in the Old Armoury (“You didn't leave me,”). Joining them on the same side of the slab, Audrey puts her hand on Duke's arm as she speaks. “We're a team,” she says simply, in a tone of voice which means, _Of course we did_.

Duke looks from her to Nathan for a moment in something like awe, before a sharp stab of fear enters his eyes, “But wait, what about …”

Audrey cuts him off, “It's OK. Croatoan agreed to leave, and to power the new Barn for Vince. They should be going any minute now. They just had to wait until Nathan had a chance to use his new Trouble on you.”

“No, Audrey, you can't trust him,” replies Duke, still panicked. “It's a trick, he won't just change his mind like that. “

“Audrey talked him round,” assures Nathan, holding Duke tighter as if to still the panic rising in him.

“Well, maybe. But it wasn't just that,” Audrey notes. “It was the two of you, seeing the things you would do for me and for Haven, the things you would sacrifice, the things you would … It made him realise things no mere words from me ever could have.”

-

The three of them hold on to each other as they stagger outside to see the growing swirl of aether in the sky over the hill in the distance, the Old Armoury just out of view. And they both hold tight to Duke as blob after blob of the stuff flies out of his chest to join the flock. It is hard for him to see something happen which he had given so much to stop and they stand there with their arms around him, reassuring themselves as much as him that he is alright and that Haven will be too.

And once all the aether has streamed out of sight, they see the edges of a bright flash of light push through the trees and strike the clouds, as the Old Armoury becomes the New Barn.

“Is that it?” Duke asks. “Is it really over?”

Audrey nods, “The aether’s gone - I can feel it.”

They will have to speak to Dwight and Gloria and Vicky and anyone else they could get hold of to check that everyone was alright and that their Troubles were really gone. Some of those would be easier to check than others, she realises with a grimace. But she knows in her heart it is done: Croatoan has gone into the New Barn, all of the aether is gone, the Troubles are over for good and she is staying in Haven. And so is Nathan, and so is Duke.

She looks at them and sees a cautious relief on Duke’s face. They will have to go up to the site of the armoury she realises; show him the empty space where the building used to be. They will have to check every way they can that Haven is Trouble-free, and that he no longer has a physical reaction to certain people’s blood. He will want to be sure and she knows she will do whatever she can to help him get there.

On Nathan’s face she sees something of the wonder Duke had when he first woke up. Well of course, Nathan has his sense of touch back. “I felt your heart start beating,” he says to Duke, and neither him nor Audrey know how to respond.

But what she also sees as she looks at them is two men who are not only alive and in one piece, but still happy and comfortable to see each other, even after what happened the last time they met. They are both themselves and here, and the three of them are together. They are a team again. She knows that they will be OK and she feels a sudden and intense flash of gratitude for the man she had threatened to kill.

Because whatever else he had done, in the end he had thought not just about himself and not even just about her, but about the people she cared about as well. He’d probably had a dozen different Troubles that could have brought Duke back, but he’d picked one that meant it would be Nathan’s touch that did it; healing not only Duke’s body, but something less tangible as well. And she could think of no better way for him to show his love for her, and no better way for the Troubles to finally, finally end.

-

The slick white insides of the New Barn look much like the old one, and very little like either the old wooden building it was originally based on, or the old stone building it now echoes.

“That was an interesting choice of Trouble to bring Duke back,” Vince notes. “You must have had a few to choose from, was that really the simplest?”

Croatoan smiles a smile that Vince can't quite decipher, “Not the simplest option, no,” he conceded. “But still the best choice I think, all things considered.”


End file.
